Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
DOI 10.1007/s10071-017-1077-7
ORIGINAL PAPER
Effect of interaction type on the characteristics of pet-directed
speech in female dog owners
Sarah Jeannin1 • Caroline Gilbert2 • Gérard Leboucher1
Received: 18 June 2016 / Revised: 23 January 2017 / Accepted: 31 January 2017 / Published online: 11 February 2017
Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Abstract Recent studies focusing on the interspecific
communicative interactions between humans and dogs
show that owners use a special speech register when
addressing their dog. This register, called pet-directed
speech (PDS), has prosodic and syntactic features similar
to that of infant-directed speech (IDS). While IDS prosody
is known to vary according to the context of the commu-
nication with babies, we still know little about the way
owners adjust acoustic and verbal PDS features according
to the type of interaction with their dog. The aim of the
study was therefore to explore whether the characteristics
of women’s speech depend on the nature of interaction
with their dog. We recorded 34 adult women interacting
with their dog in four conditions: before a brief separation,
after reuniting, during play and while giving commands.
Our results show that before separation women used a low
pitch, few modulations, high intensity variations and very
few affective sentences. In contrast, the reunion interac-
tions were characterized by a very high pitch, few imper-
atives and a high frequency of affectionate nicknames.
During play, women used mainly questions and attention-
getting devices. Finally when commanding, women mainly
used imperatives as well as attention-getting devices. Thus,
like mothers using IDS, female owners adapt the verbal as
well as the non-verbal characteristics of their PDS to the
& Sarah Jeannin
s.jeannin@u-paris10.fr
1
Laboratoire Ethologie, Cognition, Développement (LECD-
EA3456), Univ Paris Nanterre (UPL), 92000 Nanterre,
France
2 2000; Prato-Previde et al. 2006). The specific prosody of
UMR 7179, CNRS/MNHN, Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire
d’Alfort (ENVA), 7 Avenue du Général de Gaulle,
94700 Maisons-Alfort, France
nature of the interaction with their dog, suggesting that the
intended function of these vocal utterances remains to
provide dogs with information about their intentions and
emotions.
Keywords Pet-directed speech
Human–dog relationship

Vocalizations
Interaction context
Introduction
Humans and dogs share a long history, as dogs are believed
to be the first species to have been domesticated, approx-
imately 32 thousand years ago (Thalmann et al. 2013).
According to several surveys, dogs are now often consid-
ered as ‘‘part of the family’’ by their owners who see
themselves as ‘‘pet parents’’ rather than as ‘‘owners’’
(Taylor 2006; Del Monte Foods 2011) and provide inter-
specific nurturing and protective behaviour towards their
pet dogs (Fogle 1992; Askew 1996; Archer 1997; Archer
and Monton 2011). Gibson et al. (2014) compare the dogs’
integration into human families to a ‘‘child-like immer-
sion’’. The affective bond between owners and dogs mir-
rors the human parents–infant bond and may have a
common biological basis. For instance, both owners and
dogs experience an important secretion of oxytocin after a
brief period of cuddling or after sharing a mutual gaze
(Odendaal and Meintjes 2003; Nagasawa et al.
2009, 2015). Moreover, owners speak to their dogs using
pet-directed speech (PDS), a register that strongly resem-
bles the infant-directed speech (IDS) used by humans when
talking to infants (Fernald and Simon 1984; Trainor et al.
both PDS and IDS is assumed to draw the addressee’s
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attention, as well as to express friendliness and affection
(Trainor et al. 2000; Mitchell 2001).
PDS and IDS share syntactic and prosodic aspects that
are distinct from adult-directed speech (ADS): higher
fundamental frequency (also called pitch), greater pitch
range, more exaggerated vowel contrast, shorter phrases,
simpler grammar, repetitions and slower speech rate
(Hirsh-Pasek and Treiman 1982; Burnham et al.
1998, 2002). Authors found that IDS contains hyperartic-
ulated vowels (Burnham et al. 2002); this characteristic
appears to be related to the audience’s actual or expected
linguistic competence and may serve a didactic function.
Xu et al. (2013) show that the degree of vowel hyperar-
ticulation increases from ADS and PDS, to parrot-directed
speech, and then to IDS. Nevertheless, other research on
puppy-directed speech shows that both IDS and puppy-
directed speech are more hyperarticulated than ADS which
raises the possibility that IDS hyperarticulation may be
more related to emotional expressiveness than to a desire to
teach language (Kim et al. 2006). With regard to hyper-
articulation, the comparison between PDS and puppy-di-
rected speech remains to be done.
The prosody of IDS is known to change according to the
context of the interaction with the child (Newport et al.
1977; Fernald 1989; Papoušek et al. 1990, 1991; Trainor
et al. 1997, 2000). Similarly, Pongrácz et al. (2001) indi-
cated that human–dog acoustic communication could be
highly situation-dependent. However, whether speakers
adjust the acoustic and verbal features according to the type
of interaction when speaking to their dog has not been
systematically investigated.
The aim of this study was to explore whether variations
appear within PDS according to the type of interaction
human and dog are involved in. Towards these ends, we
focused on women–dog interaction because female owners,
as previously mentioned, are more likely to use PDS than
male owners (Mitchell 2004; Prato-Previde et al. 2006).
We investigated both the acoustic and linguistic features of
female owners’ speech as these two dimensions have been
shown to be intimately related (Syrdal and Kim 2008). To
do so, we analysed the speech of female owners addressing
their dog in four different types of interaction: (a) before a
brief separation, referred below as ‘‘separation’’; (b) after a
reunion, referred below as ‘‘reunion’’; (c) during play,
referred below as ‘‘play’’; and (d) when giving commands,
referred below as ‘‘commands’’. Our experimental condi-
tions are based on the Strange Situation test originally set
up by Ainsworth and Wittig (1969) and designed to
investigate human parent–infant attachment (Bowlby
1969). The Strange Situation procedure was adapted for
studying affectional bonds of dogs towards their owners
(Topál et al. 1998; Prato-Previde et al. 2003).
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Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
Based on previous studies (Fernald 1989; Trainor et al.
2000) which show that the specific features of IDS are used
to transmit emotional information and that different types
of IDS are used in different contexts (Fernald 1989; Trai-
nor et al. 2000), we predicted that female owners’ PDS
verbal and non-verbal features would be primarily shaped
by the type of interaction. In the separation condition, we
predicted that women would either (1) reassure their dog
before leaving, explaining what was going to happen using
mostly declarative sentence types and a soothing tone
characterized by a low pitch and falling contours like IDS
in a soothing context (Fernald 1989; Trainor et al. 2000) or
(2) prevent the dog from coming with them, using a low
pitch and flat contours with mostly imperative sentence
types, like IDS in a prohibition context (Fernald 1989;
Trainor et al. 2000). In contrast, in the reunion condition,
considered as one of the most positive human–dog inter-
actions (Rehn et al. 2013), we expected that women would
speak with a high pitch and increased pitch variation and
predominantly use affective sentence types. Regarding the
play context, research investigating at human vocalizations
to dogs found them to be highly repetitive and imperative
suggesting that owners were attempting to ‘‘control the
dog’’, i.e. to avoid unwanted behaviours (Mitchell and
Edmonson 1999). A recent study indicates there are dif-
ferent types of play which differ in their form and affect
content and that accordingly dog owners’ vocalizations
vary in their positive and neutral affect (Horowitz and
Hecht 2016). We thus expected women to speak with
mostly imperative sentence types, using few declaratives
and questions, while prosodic features were expected to
vary depending on what type of play owner and dog are
involved in. We predicted that both during play and when
commanding, women would use a high frequency of rep-
etitions with mainly verb and attention-getting devices as
these two conditions imply a succession of actions, and
thus the necessity to get and maintain the dog’s attention
towards the activity (Rogers et al. 1993). Finally in the
command condition, we expected women to use a ‘‘com-
manding tone’’ characterized by a low pitch and flat con-
tours with mostly imperative sentence types. This
imperative style should be different from imperatives in
play which are assumed to function to encourage the dog to
continue playing (Mitchell 2001).
Finally, some studies suggest that people who are not
parents tend to see their dog as a family member signifi-
cantly more than people who have children (Berryman
et al. 1984; Albert and Bulcroft 1988; Kidd and Kidd 1989;
Poresky and Daniels 1998; Taylor 2006). Consequently, we
predicted that owners who do not have children would
speak with enhanced PDS prosodic features compared to
those who have children.
Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
Methods
Subjects and data collection
The study took place at the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire
d’Alfort, France (ENVA) between May and July 2013. The
following protocol was approved in April 2013 by the
Ethics Committee for Clinical Research (Comité d’Ethique
en Recherche Clinique, ComERC) of ENVA. Informed
consent was obtained from all individual participants
included in the study. Participants were debriefed about the
more specific aims of the study at the end of the experi-
ment. Forty-five owner and dog dyads were recruited from
the waiting room of the preventative medicine consultation
of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vétérinaire d’Alfort
(CHUVA) and through veterinary students’ social net-
works. Participants whose dogs presented significant health
problems, aggressiveness towards people, sight or hearing
problems were not tested. The aim of the research was
presented to the participants as follows: ‘‘we would like to
observe the behaviour of dogs placed in a new environment
during different situations of interaction with their owner’’.
Out of 45 women that took part into the experiment, we
excluded 11 women that did not speak in all conditions (see
below for detailed information about conditions). Partici-
pants were 34 women aged 18–56 with an average age of
35.5 years (±2.2). Dogs were 4.2 years (±7.6), 17 were
males and 17 were females. Only 6 out of 34 dogs were
under 1 year old. We included puppies from the age of
3 months as this age corresponds to the end of the social-
ization period (Markwell and Thorne 1987).
The study was performed in a 24 m2 room. The experi-
ment was filmed using a Canon (Legria HF R306) video
recorder mounted on a 1.1 m tripod placed at the back-
centre of the room. The owner was equipped with a lapel
microphone (Olympus ME-15) connected to a digital
recorder (MARANTZ PMD620). Two female experimenters
were involved in the study. One of them carried out the
study; the other one was only present during a short period
of time, when the female owner was briefly separated from
her dog (see below), in order to reduce the stress of the dog.
Procedure
Preliminary phase
The owner was asked to specify her name, age, parental
status as well as her dog’s name, age and sex. The dog was
let free to explore the room. This preliminary phase
enabled the dog to acclimatize to its new environment.
Two experimenters were present in the room during this
phase, but they did not interact with the dog. The purpose
501
of the study was presented to the participant as aiming to
explore dogs’ behaviour when placed in a new environ-
ment in different situations of interaction with their owners.
The experimenter explained to the owner that the four steps
of the study corresponded to four conditions of interaction
with her dog: separation, reunion, play and commands
(Fig. 1). The total duration of this preliminary phase was
about 5 min.
Experimental phases
The aim of the four conditions of interaction was to audio-
and video-record natural and spontaneous speech from the
owner to the dog. The owner was simply asked to interact
with the dog in the same manner as she would at home. By
not controlling what owners said to the dogs, we aimed at
enhancing the ecological validity of our observations.
Indeed, more standardized conditions may have limited or
biased the vocal expression of the owner. The only
guideline we gave to owners was to play and give com-
mands to their dogs for 1 min. Separation and reunion were
not time controlled and were generally brief (30 s in
average). The order of testing was (1) separation, (2)
reunion, (3) play and (4) commands. The first two exper-
imental phases were similar to Ainsworth Strange Situation
procedure (Ainsworth and Wittig 1969) and consisted of
short episodes of separation and reunion with the owner.
For ethical reasons, because the experience of being sep-
arated from the owner can be considered a source of dis-
tress for adult dogs (Palestrini et al. 2005), we decided to
systematically place the play condition after the episodes of
separation and reunion, in order to provide comfort to the
potentially mildly distressed dog.
1. Separation condition The owner and one of the
experimenters left the room for 3 min for a short walk
around the building while the second experimenter
stayed with the dog. Before leaving, the owner was
asked to interact with her dog as she usually does: she
was allowed to talk or to pet the dog as she normally
would. The experimenter that stayed with the dog was
always the same person and she was instructed to
strictly refrain from interacting with the dog. The
separation interactions were not time limited and lasted
about 30 s. During the 3 min walk, the owner and the
experimenter interacted freely, which allowed us to
record adult-directed speech. Because the general
conditions during this recording were quite different
from those of the experimental phrases, we did not
retain these data in the main analysis. However, these
data were specifically used for a point of statistical
clarification (results section, acoustic analyses, effect
of parental status).
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Fig. 1 Four conditions of interaction between the owner and her dog: a separation, b reunion, c play and d commands
2. Reunion condition the owner and the experimenter
came back reentered the room and the owner was free
to interact with her dog as though she had just returned
from work or shopping. The interaction lasted an
average of 30 s until the owner stopped the interaction
with her dog and looked at the experimenter or asked
her about the next step.
3. Play condition The owner was asked to play with her
dog for 1 min. There were no specific rules regarding
how the owner could play with the dog. Different toys
were available in the room and offered to the owners
like ropes, tennis balls, cuddly toys, etc. Owners could
also use their own toys.
4. Commands condition The owner was asked to give
commands for 1 min, whether the dog obeyed or not.
The owner was not asked to give specific commands,
but to interact as usual. It was, however, specified that
she could repeat the same command as many times as
she wanted. The owner was allowed to reward the dog
by voice (congratulations) or with treats at her
disposal.
Data analysis
Acoustic analysis
During each condition, women’s utterances were generally
short, lasting a few seconds, and reiterated after pauses. For
the purpose of our analyses, we extracted all fragments of
speech directed to the dog and chained them in order to
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Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
form a unique audio sequence per condition, using
Audacity software (2.0.3). In the ‘‘commands’’ condition,
in order to focus specifically on the acoustic properties of
the commands, we excluded the frequent vocal congratu-
lations that came after the dog obeyed a command.
We performed acoustic analyses using a script in Praat
software (5.3.50) on the following measures: (a) mean F0:
calculated as the average fundamental frequency over the
duration of the signal and (b) F0CV: the coefficient of
variation of F0 over the duration of the signal, estimated as
the standard deviation of F0 divided by mean F0; it is a
measure of the intonation (F0 contour variations). We also
calculated (c) IntCV: the coefficient of variation of the
intensity contour (intensity corresponds to the energy in the
sound), as modulation of fundamental frequency has been
shown to inevitably co-vary with distinctive patterns of
intensity (Sokol et al. 2005).
Verbal analysis
Owners’ speeches utterances were independently tran-
scribed by two investigators. We also noted non-verbal
vocal sounds such as whistles. Lapel microphones enabled
a high audio recording quality, even when owners whis-
pered. Agreement in word and non-word identifications
between the two investigators was 95%.
In a first step, we explored whether the interaction context
had an influence on the sentence types used by owners when
talking to their dog. The entire original corpus was examined,
and utterances were categorized following the sentence types
Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
used by Syrdal and Kim (2008): imperative, interrogative,
affective and declarative (assertive), considered as four broad
modes of enunciation reflecting the speaker’s cognitive atti-
tude to the content. The beginning and end of sentences were
determined on the basis of intonation and pauses. We distin-
guished four types of sentences on the basis of intonation,
meaning of the words/sentences and their context: (1)
imperative sentence type (i.e. ‘‘Sit!’’). We also looked for
imperatives disguised as questions (i.e. ‘‘Tu me donnes la
balle?’’, English translation: ‘‘You give me the ball?’’) that
were not ‘‘a request for information, but a directive’’ (Mitchell
and Edmonson 1999). (2) Interrogative sentence type were
requests for information (i.e. ‘‘Quel jouet tu veux?’’, English
translation: ‘‘Which toy do you want?’’. (3) Affective sentence
type included mainly positive exclamations: stock phrases and
common expressions (i.e. ‘‘A tout à l’heure!’’, ‘‘Bonjour/
Coucou’’, English translation: ‘‘See you!’’ or ‘‘Hi!’’), inter-
jections (i.e. ‘‘hey!’’, ‘‘oh!’’, ‘‘allez!’’, ‘‘hop!’’) compliments
(i.e. ‘‘t’es belle/t’es beau!’’, English translation: ‘‘You pretty
girl/boy!’’) or verbal praising/congratulations (i.e. ‘‘bravo !’’,
‘‘bon chien !’’, English translation: ‘‘Good girl/boy!’’). Tag
questions (i.e. ‘‘C’est quoi ça?!’’, English translation: ‘‘What’s
this?’’) and post-completers (‘‘Hein?’’, English translation:
‘‘You do?’’) (Mitchell and Edmonson 1999) were classed as
affective sentence type as the owner was not expecting an
answer but was trying to stimulate the dog. (4) Declarative
sentence type was usually used by owners when talking in
place of the dog or expressing the dog’s feelings (i.e. ‘‘Hmm,
je sens une odeur qui n’est pas la mienne’’, English translation:
‘‘Hmm, I am sensing a smell that’s not mine’’). Moreover, we
measured the occurrence of particular utterances that did not
meet the precedent sentence types criteria: (5) attention-get-
ting devices (AGD) were considered, as calling the dog’s
name and non-verbal sounds used to catch the dog’s attention
(i.e. ‘‘qqq’’ or whistle). (6) Affectionate nicknames given to
the dog were the last (i.e. ‘‘ma douce’’, English translation:
‘‘sweety’’).
In a second step, sentences were fractionated into
words and the total of different words used by owners
was extracted in each of the conditions. We first inves-
tigated words’ repetitions by calculating the total number
of words used with and without individual repetitions
and we performed the ratio between the two (see
‘‘Results’’).
Then, in order to explore whether the interaction context
had an influence on the grammatical categories of words
used by owners, we selected words that were only used at
least by five participants in each condition and we classi-
fied the words into grammatical categories: nouns, pro-
nouns, verbs, adverbs, interjections, prepositions,
conjunctions, or articles. In this analysis, because some
owners had a tendency to repeat the same words in
503
conditions, repetitions of the same word by the same owner
in the same condition were discarded.
Statistical analysis
Acoustic analysis
One-way repeated measure ANOVAs were performed to
test the influence of the different conditions (separation,
reunion, play and commands) on the owner PDS features;
the sample size was n = 34.
In addition, a two-way repeated measure ANOVA was
performed to test the interaction between the variables
‘‘condition’’ and ‘‘parental status’’. Post hoc analyses were
performed using Bonferroni-corrected paired t test (Sokal
and Rohlf 1995). Mann–Whitney tests were performed to
compare data from mothers versus non-mothers. The
sample size for these analyses was n = 33, because
information about the parental status of one participant was
missing. Results are reported as mean ± SE (standard
error). Two-tailed tests were used throughout.
Verbal analysis
Because the data did not follow statistical normality (Sha-
piro–Wilk test for normality p \ 0.05) and could not be
normalized with standard transformations, Friedman repe-
ated measures ANOVAs on ranks were performed to test the
influence of the condition on the use of different sentence
types and particular utterances (Siegel and Castellan 1988).
Post hoc analyses were performed using Tukey’s HSD,
accounting for multiple comparisons and maintaining
experiment-wise alpha at the specified level (0.05) (Maxwell
and Delaney 2004).
Moreover, Chi-square tests were performed to explore
the distribution of the grammatical categories of words
used in each condition. Two-tailed tests were used
throughout. All statistical analyses were performed using
SigmaPlot 13.0 software.
Results
Acoustic analyses
Mean F0
There was a significant effect of the condition on mean F0
(one-way RM ANOVA, F(3, 33) = 2.92, p = 0.038).
Women used a higher-pitched voice in the reunion condi-
tion compared to the separation condition: Bonferroni
paired t test = 2.88, p = 0.029.
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Coefficient of variation of F0 (F0CV) Effect of parental status

There was a significant effect of the condition on the F0CV The data analysis revealed a significant main effect of the
[F(3, 33) = 12.05, p \ 0.001]. Women had a lower F0CV in owners’ parental status and of the condition of interaction on
the separation condition compared to all conditions: sepa- mean F0; no significant interaction effect was found, (two-
ration versus reunion: t = 5.58, p \ 0.001, separation way RM ANOVA, parental status effect, F(1, 31) = 4.33,
versus play: t = 4.60, p \ 0.001, separation versus com- p = 0.046; condition effect, F(3, 31) = 3.03, p = 0.033;
mands: t = 4.08, p \ 0.001. interaction, F(3, 31) = 0.10, p = 0.962). Non-mothers spoke
with a higher-pitched voice than mothers, with, respectively,
Coefficient of variation of the intensity contour (intCV) M = 305.6 ± SE = 7.8 and M = 278.5 ± SE = 10.4). No
significant effect of the parental status was found on other
There was a significant effect of the condition on the IntCV acoustic parameters.
[F(3, 33) = 6.05, p \ 0.001]. Women showed a greater A Mann–Whitney comparison test showed that non-
IntCV in the command condition compared to play: mothers (n = 21, M = 28.71 ± SE = 2.2) were also
t = 3.90, p = 0.001 and compared to reunion: t = 2.99, younger than mothers (n = 12, M = 46.0 ± SE = 2.4):
p = 0.021 (Fig. 2). U = 30, p \ 0.001. As such, we cannot rule out that the effect
of parental status on mean F0 was affected by the age of the
(a)
320
* speaker. We attempted to clarify this question by analysing
female owners’ speech directed to the experimenter (adult-
310 directed speech). This was possible because owners still wore
300 the lapel microphone during the separation condition.
A Mann–Whitney comparison test did not show any differ-
290
ence between non-mothers and mothers on mean F0 in adult-
280 directed speech (U = 86, p = 0.139, with, respectively,
270 M = 246.45 ± SE = 7.6 and M = 227.23 ± SE = 11.7).
260
Separation Reunion Play Commands Verbal analyses

(b) Sentence types

0,3 **
0,25 Imperative There was a significant effect of the condition
0,2 on the use of imperative sentence type [Friedman, v23
(n = 34) = 61.92, p \ 0.001]. Owners used significantly
0,15
fewer imperative sentences in the reunion condition com-
0,1 pared to all conditions and significantly more imperative
0,05 sentences in the commands condition compared to all
conditions: commands versus reunion: q = 10.69,
0
Separation Reunion Play Commands p \ 0.05; commands versus separation: q = 6.31,
p \ 0.05; commands versus play: q = 3.72, p \ 0.05; play
(c) * versus reunion: q = 6.97, p \ 0.05; separation versus
1,1 ***
reunion: q = 4.38, p \ 0.05.
1,05

1 Interrogative There was a significant effect of the con-

dition on the use of interrogative sentence type [v23
0,95
(n = 34) = 25.05, p \ 0.001]. Owners used significantly
0,9
more interrogative sentences in the play condition com-
0,85 pared to the separation condition (q = 5.25, p \ 0.05) and
0,8
compared to the commands condition (q = 4.18,
Separation Reunion Play Commands p \ 0.05).

Fig. 2 Effect of the condition of interaction (separation, reunion,

Affective There was a significant effect of the condition
play and commands) on PDS acoustic parameters: a mean F0,
b F0CV and c IntCV. Significant differences are indicated as follows: on the use of affective sentence type [v23 (n = 34) = 41.71,
*p \ 0.05; ***p B 0.001 p \ 0.001]. Owners used significantly fewer affective

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Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509 505

sentences in the separation condition compared to all the reunion condition compared to the play condition
conditions: separation versus commands: q = 7.9, (q = 3.65, p \ 0.05) (Fig. 3).
p \ 0.05; separation versus reunion: q = 7.37, p \ 0.05;
separation versus play: q = 5.98, p \ 0.05. Repetitions

Declarative There was no significant effect of the con-
dition on the use of declarative sentence type [v23
(n = 34) = 4.54, p = 0.209] (Fig. 3).
Concerning particular utterances, there was a significant
effect of the condition on the use of attention-getting
devices (AGD) [v23 (n = 34) = 24.66, p \ 0.001). Owners
used significantly more AGD in commands and play con-
ditions compared to the other conditions: commands versus
separation: q = 3.72, p \ 0.05; commands versus reunion:
q = 5.71, p \ 0.05; play versus reunion: q = 4.52,
p \ 0.05. There was also a significant effect of the con-
dition on the use of nicknames [v23 (n = 34) = 18.89,
p = 0.003]. Owners used significantly more nicknames in
Descriptive data from Table 1 showed that the ratio of the
number of words with individual repetitions (IR) divided
by the number of word without individual repetitions (IR)
is close to 3. Overall, owners used a lot of repetitions. This
ratio is particularly important in the commands condition
(2.85) and in the play condition (2.29). Repetitions are less
important in the reunion condition, with a ratio of 1.86.
Grammatical categories of words
Chi-square showed significant differences between condi-
tions with the use of grammatical categories (Fig. 4). In
separation [v23 (n = 34) = 30.04, p \ 0.001), play [v23

Fig. 3 Effect of the condition (a) (b)

of interaction (separation, 25 c 3,5 b
reunion, play and commands)
on the sentence types used by 3
20
female owners: a imperative, 2,5
b interrogative, c affective, 15 b 2
d declarative, e attention-getting a
devices and f nickname. Letters 10 1,5
b a,b
are used to indicate significance: 1 a
the presence of a same letter 5 a
0,5
above bars indicates a non-
significant difference 0 0
Separation Reunion Play Commands Separation Reunion Play Commands

(c) (d)
10 1,6
b
b b 1,4
8
1,2
6 1
0,8
4 0,6
a
2
0,4
0,2
0 0
Separation Reunion Play Commands Separation Reunion Play Commands

(e) (f)
5 c 2 b
4 b,c a,b
1,5
3
1
a,b
a
2 a,b
a 0,5
1

0 0
Separation Reunion Play Commands Separation Reunion Play Commands

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics

Separation Reunion Play Commands
of the words used in each
condition of interaction Number of words without IRa 376 534 723 752
Number of words with IRb 751 996 1653 2151
Ratio b/a 1.99 1.86 2.29 2.86
Ratio between the number of words with and without individual repetitions
a
Number of words without individual repetitions (IR)
b
Number of words with individual repetitions (IR)

(n = 34) = 37.64, p \ 0.001) and commands [v23
(n = 34) = 62.05, p \ 0.001), data showed that partici-
pants used principally verbs when addressing the dog.
However, in the reunion condition [v23 (n = 34) = 8.04,
p = 0.09), participants did not use a particular grammatical
category, but multiple ones (interjections, adverbs, verbs
and other).
Discussion
To our knowledge, the present study is the first to inves-
tigate both the verbal and non-verbal features of adult
women’s speech during different types of interactions with
their dogs. Speech utterances were recorded in four
experimental conditions which solicit different emotions
and intents from the owners: before a brief separation, after
reunion, during play and giving commands. Our results
show that women adapted both the verbal and non-verbal
aspects of their utterances to the interaction context.
In the separation condition, female dog owners used a
low-pitched voice, flat intonation contours and high voice
intensity variation. Additionally, they used verbal features
consistent with these acoustic parameters: a high frequency
of imperatives and few affective sentences. With regard to
our initial hypotheses, these results support the idea that
women tried to prevent the dog to come with them using an
imperative style of communication rather than a soothing
style of interaction. According to our predictions, in the
reunion condition women used a high-pitched voice and
significantly more pitch variations. These non-verbal fea-
tures were reinforced by the use of affective sentences and
affectionate nicknames. Moreover, they did not use verbs
or imperatives as frequently as in the other types of inter-
actions. Thus, our findings suggest that female dog owners
use a high-pitched voice when they want to express praise

Fig. 4 Graphic representation

of the grammatical categories of
words (verb, adverb,
interjections, personal pronoun
and other) used in each
condition of interaction:
separation (a), reunion (b), play
(c), commands (d)

123
Anim Cogn (2017) 20:499–509
or affection and a low-pitched voice when they want to
control the dog. This result confirms previous studies
indicating that increases in mean F0 are typical of vocal
expressions of enjoyment, happiness, whereas decreases in
mean F0 characterize expressions of authority, irritation
and anger (Bolinger 1964; Fernald 1992). Moreover, it is
consistent with ethological observations highlighted by
Morton (1977) that non-verbal auditory signals, in humans
and non-humans, have similar functions: high tonal sounds
in animals repertoires are associated with affiliative or
submissive motivation while low, harsh sounds are asso-
ciated with aggressive motivation. Hence, because dogs do
not possess the ability of language, female dog owners
emphasize non-verbal cues to convey their emotions and
intents, using signal components with cross-specific value.
In the play condition, in line with our predictions,
women frequently used attention-getting devices (AGD),
questions and imperatives although we noticed that
imperatives were more encouragements than real com-
mands. We found a similar pattern of verbal features in the
commands condition: women used a high frequency of
AGD and imperatives; contrary to the play condition, they
did not use questions as they were not engaged in a mutual
activity and were just asking the dog to obey. In addition,
women did not use a significantly low-pitched voice or flat
contours. A possible interpretation is that when female
owners give a command to their dog, they first attempt to
draw his/her attention, using exaggerated acoustic features
and then seek to maintain the dogs’ arousal and motivation
throughout the activity. Female owners used prosody as an
ostensive cue, i.e. as a means to alert the dog to the com-
munication directed to them (Topál et al. 2014). Acoustic
features characterized by decreasing F0 are better related to
prohibition (Fernald 1989; Trainor et al. 2000), as observed
in the separation condition when female owners intend to
inhibit the dog’s behaviour.
The current study thus confirms that women do not rely
solely on prosody when they communicate with dogs as
they associate specific verbal content to the non-verbal
component of their vocal signals. We observed that female
owners spoke to their dog using words and constructions
derived from normal speech (e.g. similar to those used in
ADS), but with a limited vocabulary including frequent
repetitions of isolated words or phrases. They also sim-
plified their utterances using verbs but excluding gram-
matical categories that are likely to be meaningless to the
dog, such as articles. Similar linguistic patterns have been
identified in IDS and are believed to facilitate infant’ lan-
guage comprehension and acquisition (Saint-Georges et al.
2013). When interacting with their dog, female owners
may use acoustic features such as pitch modulations as a
tool to highlight focal words and thus to assist words’
segmentation and recognition by dogs. As mentioned by
507
Ohala (1984), the F0 of voice is used as a gesture which
accompanies or is superimposed onto the linguistic mes-
sage, in order to enhance its meaning. We suggest that
women use specific linguistic and verbal patterns when
speaking to their dog because they aim to teach or reinforce
basic commands. Indeed, owners report that they feel that
their dog understands the meaning of certain verbal utter-
ances (Pongrácz et al. 2001). Thus, when women speak to
their dogs, both the prosody and the verbal content appear
to function to convent context-relevant information. Fur-
ther studies should investigate whether dogs whose owners
frequently use PDS are more capable of acquiring and
understanding commands than dogs whose owners seldom
communicate using PDS.
We also hypothesized that PDS would be influenced by
the parental status of the owner, because non-parents tend
to see their dog as a family member significantly more than
parents. We predicted that non-mothers would present
exacerbated prosodic features compared to mothers. Our
results are consistent with this hypothesis: non-mothers
spoke to their dog with a higher-pitched voice compared to
mothers. In our sample, non-mothers were younger than
mothers which may account for this result, as some authors
report a decrease in voice pitch with age in adult women
(Harrington et al. 2007). However, we failed to find a
significant difference between non-mothers and mothers’
fundamental frequency mean in ADS in our sample. One
explanation for these results could be that non-mothers
have a stronger tendency to express friendliness and
affection to their dogs, consistent with research indicating
that people who do not live with children tend to be more
attached to their dogs (Marinelli et al. 2007) and that
couples without children show a particularly high degree of
attachment to their pet and are more prone to consider their
dog as a member of their family, even as their own child
(Berryman et al. 1984; Albert and Bulcroft 1988; Kidd and
Kidd 1989; Poresky and Daniels 1998; Taylor 2006; Del
Monte Foods 2011).
Conclusion
Overall, our results confirm that women speaking to their
dog, like mothers speaking to their babies, adapt the verbal
and non-verbal features of their speech to the interaction’s
context in order to provide the dog with information about
their intentions and emotions. They also take into account
the dog’s limited ability to understand human verbal sig-
nals and adjust their mix of speech components accord-
ingly, using appropriate verbal content reinforced by non-
verbal cues in order to enhance the dog’s comprehension
and to some extent with the aim of teaching the dog some
basics utterances.
123
508
While research has shown that naturally spoken IDS is
associated with increased infant attention and social
responsiveness compared to ADS (Dunst et al. 2012) and
that IDS leads to an increase neuronal activation (Golinkoff
et al. 2015) as well as to positive effects on infant language
development (Liu et al. 2003; Song et al. 2010), no study
has yet explored dogs’ preference for PDS. Future studies
should investigate the perceptual relevance of PDS’s fea-
tures from dogs’ perspective, in order to evaluate the effect
of PDS on dogs’ attention, mood and ability to learn new
commands.
Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to David Reby for his
invaluable contribution to this article. We would like to thank Dr.
S. Perrot (IRCA-ENVA) for providing access to the IRCA room and
its facilities at the ENVA. Thanks to Marine Parker, Raphaëlle
Bourrec, Raphaëlle Tigeot and Justine Guillaumont for their partici-
pation in these experiments, as well as for the pilot experiment.
Thanks to Mathieu Amy for help in statistical analyses. Thanks to the
CHUVA (ENVA) for help with the recruitment of owners. Thanks to
owners who accepted to take part to this study.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical approval All procedures performed in studies involving
human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of
the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards. All applicable international, national and/or institutional
guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed and ‘‘all
procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accor-
dance with the ethical standards of the institution at which the study
was conducted’’. The study received the approval of the ethical
committee of ENVA (COMERC), no. 2015-03-11.
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